One step closer to being no more safe, but significantly less free

The House voted yesterday 257 to 171 to make permanent almost all the antiterrorism provisions of the so-called USA PATRIOT Act.

Billmon fills us in on what Senate passage of Sections 213 and 215 (which could happen next week) of the Act will allow the government to do:

• Order any person or entity to turn over "any tangible things," so long as the FBI specifies that the order is part of an authorized terrorism or intelligence investigation.
  
  
• Obtain personal data, including medical records, without any specific facts connecting those records to a foreign terrorist.
  
  
• Prohibit doctors and insurance companies from disclosing to their patients that their medical records have been seized by the government.
  
  
• Obtain library and book store records, including lists of books checked out, without any specific facts connecting the records to a foreign agent or terrorist.
  
  
• Obtain private financial records without a court order, and without notification to the person involved.
  
  
• Conduct intelligence investigations of both United States citizens and permanent residents without probable cause, or even reasonable grounds to believe that they are engaged in criminal activity or are agents of a foreign power.
  
  
• Investigate U.S. citizens based in part on their exercise of their First Amendment rights, and non-citizens based solely on their exercise of those rights. (Naturally, decisions about what constitutes "in part" are left to a secret court, meeting secretly.)
  
  
• Those served with Section 215 orders are prohibited from disclosing that fact to anyone -- even their attorney. (This provision was struck down by a U.S. district court last year.)
  

Section 213 allows them to:

• Conduct secret “sneak and peek” searches of your home.
  
  
• Enter your home or office and seize items for an indefinite period of time, without informing you that a warrant has been issued.
  

And for dessert, we get Section 216, the most paranoid of all, which allows the government to:

Seize records that could show the subject lines of your e-mails and the details of your Web surfing habits.

Anyone think this is a case of "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about?" There are wingnuts, many of them in the United States House and Senate, who think people like me, who disagree WITH GOOD REASON with this Administration should be executed. We have an Administration under siege that has said "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists." These guys are so paranoid they make Nixon look as oblivious as Gary Hart.

You may not like what I say, but don't you think wanting me executed or shot in sight is a bit excessive? Do you REALLY think what I say warrants banishment to Guantanamo Bay? Because that's what's coming under these provisions.

Don't wave that fucking flag at me anymore. It no longer means what it was intended to.